 |
 |
 |
|
|
|||
|
|||
|
|||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Weekend racing blown away
AUCKLAND, New Zealand (CNN) -- Louis Vuitton Cup organisers were again faced with a scheduling headache after strong winds forced semifinal racing to be postponed on Saturday and Sunday. Eighteen of 48 days of racing in the Hauraki Gulf off Auckland have been lost since the series began on October 1 to find a challenger for February's America's Cup against Team New Zealand. Swiss team Alinghi is one win away from a place in the final, leading San Franciso-based BMW Oracle Racing 3-0. The other semifinal between Seattle syndicate OneWorld and Italy's Prada is locked at 1-1. OneWorld has won two races but was docked one point for infringing design rules. Races can only start if the wind averages between seven and 19 knots. On Sunday it was just above 20 knots. "No-one likes going out there and bobbing around all day without getting any racing done," OneWorld executive director Bob Ratliffe told Reuters. "But our guys have come to accept it as part of the deal. These days when they get the first weather report of the day from our weather guy Ken Campbell, they just laugh. "In the two years we've been down here we've sailed on five consecutive days only twice. Our forecasting shows this kind of weather pattern could continue easily for the next two months." The semifinals are due to be completed by Tuesday. Then the loser of the Alinghi-Oracle match will race the winner of the OneWorld-Prada semi in a best-of-seven race repechage, scheduled to start on December 20. The loser of the OneWorld-Prada match will be eliminated.
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
